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en-usTechdirt. Stories about "nfl"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Tue, 18 Oct 2016 11:46:19 PDTNFL Teams Enjoy Giving NFL's Social Media Policy A Giant, Hilarious Middle Finger, Using ToysTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161017/06573235818/nfl-teams-enjoy-giving-nfls-social-media-policy-giant-hilarious-middle-finger-using-toys.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161017/06573235818/nfl-teams-enjoy-giving-nfls-social-media-policy-giant-hilarious-middle-finger-using-toys.shtml
You'll recall that we recently commented on the NFL's new dumb social media policy for its member teams, which outlines how much video content a team can push out as kickoff approaches (less than before), what type of video content from games teams can produce and distribute on their own (basically none), and the size of the fines if teams violate this policy (huuuuuge). The NFL has insisted elsewhere that this one-size-fits-all marketing approach has zilch to do with its precipitous ratings decline, although few believe it on this point. And, even as news of the policy has been released, the NFL itself has been inclined to push out as much of this very same content itself, centralizing its social media media control.

So, if you're an NFL team that doesn't like the new policy and wants to make its fans aware of how silly it is in the most hilarious way possible, what do you do? Well, if you're the Cleveland Browns and the Philadelphia Eagles, you push out Twitter updates to your followers that depict game highlights using plastic figurines. Here is how the Browns alerted their fans that their team had scored a touchdown.

One wonders exactly how quickly the NFL's policy will be updated to include fines for snarkily shitting on that same policy. I imagine it will come quickly, because the NFL has not shown a propensity for having a sense of humor. Meanwhile, this should highlight exactly why the policy is so silly. Here we have creative, snarky, funny social media folks at these NFL teams whose talents are being wasted due to a top-down marketing approach from a league office that is overseeing the first ratings decline for the NFL in decades.

How in the world does that make any sense?

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]]>sorry-not-sorryhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20161017/06573235818Wed, 12 Oct 2016 13:01:38 PDTA Weekend Full Of The NFL Violating Its Own Social Media Video Content RulesTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161011/05380735761/weekend-full-nfl-violating-own-social-media-video-content-rules.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161011/05380735761/weekend-full-nfl-violating-own-social-media-video-content-rules.shtml
We had just discussed the NFL's strange edict to its member teams to significantly scale back the amount of video content they were sharing from NFL games, particularly during lead-ups to kickoff. As the news came out alongside some fairly significant reports of ratings drops for the NFL, many, including this writer, assumed that the NFL thought that such video content was a factor in the viewership decline. The NFL, meanwhile, denied this, instead claiming that the ratings drops had more to do with the election season, noting how many people were busily watching Presidential debates, with many of us watching whatever car-wreck zombie-apocalypse our political discourse has devolved into.

Whether that's true or not, it certainly seems as though the NFL itself does not think of video content and social media as some kind of enemy to ratings after all. Over this past weekend, immediately after its edict to its teams went out, the NFL was pushing even more video content out via social media than it had in the past.

If the league is panicking about the distribution of highlights on social media cutting into ratings, though, no one told their social-media managers, because pretty much every major play in an NFL game yesterday was posted almost immediately to the league’s Twitter account, often with preroll ads attached.

Ok, so what do we make of this? Well, as with many things to do with the NFL, the takeaways are both good and bad. The good is that the NFL clearly understands that video content blackouts are a thing of the past and that such content is a great driver for ratings, and not the opposite. But the bad is that the NFL seems to think that a top-down approach to controlling such content is the best approach to targeting viewers.

And that's just dumb. Not only dumb, in fact, but demonstrably silly. As I mentioned in the original post, the markets that host NFL teams are wildly diverse, from major markets like New York and Chicago -- and now Los Angeles --, to relatively tiny markets like Green Bay and Charlotte. A one-size-fits-all marketing approach never made sense for NFL teams, but before the days of digital media there wasn't a great deal in terms of diversity that could be achieved. But in the social media age? Marketing can be targeted and approached in a way tailored to specific fan-bases and markets. Why in the world would the NFL think that it had a better handle than each individual team, all of which employ their own social media managers, as to how to best drive viewership and attendance?

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]]>hike!https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20161011/05380735761Tue, 11 Oct 2016 14:47:27 PDTTo Combat Dropping Ratings, The NFL Thinks Fining Its Teams For Sharing Video On Social Media Is The AnswerTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161007/09544035739/to-combat-dropping-ratings-nfl-thinks-fining-teams-sharing-video-social-media-is-answer.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161007/09544035739/to-combat-dropping-ratings-nfl-thinks-fining-teams-sharing-video-social-media-is-answer.shtml
It's been a time of remarkable progress of late when it comes to professional sports organizations being smart about how to pursue viewers in this here digital era. Major athletic institutions are finally opening up the door to wider streaming options, putting aside the doomsayers. Add to that that other leagues are starting to realize what a boon Major League Baseball's Advanced Media product has been to viewership and attendance and it seemed like we were on the precipice of a golden age in digital sports media.

Leave it to the NFL to ensure that we take at least one step backwards. What once seemed like a never ending funnel of money and upward trending viewership, the NFL has undergone something of a ratings correction as of late. It seems that amidst the controversy over head injury, bad officiating, the contraction of one-day fantasy football, and what some think is a generally declining quality of the on-field product, less people are watching games, both in person and on television. This had to happen at some point, if for no other reason than because NFL ratings over the past 2 decades were completely boffo. But the NFL's choice to combat this inevitable decline takes a page from the days we finally just got over.

We’ve obtained a memo that went out to all 32 teams reflecting that, starting Oct. 12, clubs are subject to a new fine schedule for exceeding the limits on video and any moving content. Those are particularly strict during the 60 minutes leading up to games, and through games, with clubs largely limited to re-posting from the NFL’s own accounts (with some allowance for approved content on Snapchat). The memo says that first-time offenders will be fined up to $25,000, a second offense will warrant a fine of up to $50,000, and a third offense will merit a fine of up to $100,000 and loss of rights to post league-controlled content.

This is flat out dumb for a number of reasons. To start, a top-down control over how teams choose to market their product breeds rigidity. Rules applied both to a market like New York and Green Bay are going to be flawed almost by definition, as those markets are completely different and the tactics needed to attract fans simply aren't the same.

But the larger idea of blacking out or setting limits on social media video content as a way to increase viewership is both a misunderstanding of how such content is viewed and shared, as well as a misunderstanding as to its wider effects on audience numbers. Simply nobody is watching highlights of video on an NFL team's social media account in lieu of watching the game live. That isn't the point of those highlights. Rather, the point is to attract, through the sharing of the video, new viewers who perhaps weren't initially interested in watching the game.

It's what makes MLBAM so powerful. I'm not perusing Twitter to get my live game action, but I sure as hell will switch over to a game in progress, or one upcoming, should some video content give me a compelling reason, whether it's a pitcher throwing a no-hitter, a batter one hit away from the cycle, or some on-field altercation that ratchets up the intensity level. I'm a baseball fan; I live for that stuff. And having a team try to lure me to their broadcast, which I can likewise access via the excellent MLB.tv service, is a brilliant piece of marketing.

Marketing that the NFL, normally smart in its business practices, has decided to forego. Television blackouts of old have become social media blackouts today, and for no good reason.

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]]>no-it-isn'thttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20161007/09544035739Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:14:18 PDTNFL Cuts Out Shout-Out To St. Louis In HoF Speech YouTube Upload, Streisand Effect Takes OverTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160808/06283735179/nfl-cuts-out-shout-out-to-st-louis-hof-speech-youtube-upload-streisand-effect-takes-over.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160808/06283735179/nfl-cuts-out-shout-out-to-st-louis-hof-speech-youtube-upload-streisand-effect-takes-over.shtml
The NFL is almost a perfect study in how the combination of an attempt at strict control of its content and a complete lack of understanding of the Streisand Effect will produce the opposite of the intended result. Past versions of this have included the NFL's insane claim of copyright on the only footage that exists of the original Super Bowl, meaning nobody actually gets to see the footage, as well as the league's attempt to bury an ESPN documentary about head trauma as it relates to football. In both cases, the NFL comes out looking petty at best, and much worse in the case of trying to hide the negative health effects of the game from the parents of children who might otherwise play it.

But even that kind of evil and petty takes a back seat to the NFL deciding to cut out a portion of Orlando Pace's Hall of Fame induction speech in which he gives a shout-out to the city of St. Louis, former host of the Rams.

St. Louis football fans who hoped to see a shout-out from the Rams’ newest Hall-of-Famer Orlando Pace might have been disappointed if they watched the version of his speech uploaded to the NFL’s YouTube channel. While the other inductees’ speeches from last night’s event are presented unedited by the NFL—including Brett Favre’s 37-minute misunderstanding of “go long”—Pace’s speech is cut off before he gets to the portion where he tells St. Louis fans that “nothing can ever take [our championship] away from you.”

The Rams, of course, just recently bailed on St. Louis for Los Angeles, to the tune of much strife and controversy. And as much as I love digging at St. Louis sports fans, the NFL's attempt to control its brand message by removing a short, innocuous tip of the cap to a city that a Hall of Fame player called home for so long is almost hilarious in its petty cruelty.

And, as per usual, it didn't really work anyway. That Streisand Effect will get you every time. When people noticed that the NFL's official upload had the shout-out to St. Louis edited out, that editing was reported on, and the portion of the speech that had been omitted suddenly became share-worthy. Nice try, guys.

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]]>rammed-homehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20160808/06283735179Tue, 8 Mar 2016 17:00:00 PSTDailyDirt: Jocks Versus NerdsMichael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110401/03131813729/dailydirt-jocks-versus-nerds.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110401/03131813729/dailydirt-jocks-versus-nerds.shtmlsports are played. Computers aren't just going to beat people at chess and Go. They might become better talent scouts and strategists for every major sport.

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

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]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110401/03131813729Fri, 5 Feb 2016 19:39:00 PSTNFL Edging Towards Claiming A Trademark On 'The Big Game' AgainMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160205/13584533536/nfl-edging-towards-claiming-trademark-big-game-again.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160205/13584533536/nfl-edging-towards-claiming-trademark-big-game-again.shtmlanyone to use the term "Super Bowl" without having paid the NFL first (and paid lots and lots of money). As we've pointed out in the past, most of this is pure bullshit. In most cases, people and companies totally can use the term "Super Bowl" but few people want to deal with any sort of legal fight, so they just don't.

What's even crazier though is how the NFL has tried to crack down on euphemisms as well. The most popular term that companies use instead of the Super Bowl is "The Big Game." And going back to 2007, we noted that the NFL wanted to trademark that too, even though it's not the one who came up with the term, nor does it really use it. A bunch of companies opposed the NFL's attempt, but over at the Pirated Thoughts blog, Michael Lee notes that the NFL is doing a few things that suggest it may want to trademark "The Big Game" again. At the very least, it's trying to block anyone else from trademarking it:

In late 2014, an individual in California filed a trademark registration for the BIG GAME DAME mark to cover athletic gear such as shirts, pants and jackets. The applicant claims that the mark is already in use and filed the “in use” specimen that can be seen below. The specimen is nothing more than a ratty plain white t-shirt that someone stuck a homemade label on from their old Brother P-Touch. Alright, this all seems a bit shady but we will put the skepticism to the side.

More germane than the earnestness of this trademark application, in December 2015 the mark was published for opposition. On January 26th, the NFL requested and was granted an extension of time to oppose issuance of the trademark. This is the usual first step that allows the parties time to try to work out a settlement, allows the opposer additional time to draft the opposition or even allows the opposer time to reevaluate its position and not even file an opposition in the first place.

This potential opposition is not an isolated incident. On the same day, the NFL was also granted an extension of time to oppose an entirely different mark by another clothing company, BIG GAME DAY ARE YOU READY! A month earlier, the NFL also requested an extension of time to oppose this same clothing company’s BIG GAME mark. Three potential trademark oppositions over the use of BIG GAME in a month’s time, where there is smoke there could be some fire.

In other words, the NFL is at least suggesting that it may have a right to "The Big Game" as well. It's not clear if the NFL thinks there will be less opposition this time, or that people won't notice. Or maybe it just doesn't care (which seems to be the standard operating procedure of the NFL these days). But, once again, such a move would be crazy. And, of course, it wouldn't even be necessary if the NFL hadn't been such a trademark extremist in the first place.

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]]>yup, againhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20160205/13584533536Thu, 4 Feb 2016 10:35:19 PSTRidiculous Copyright Fight Still Keeping The Only Video Of The First Super Bowl Locked UpMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160204/00541133514/ridiculous-copyright-fight-still-keeping-only-video-first-super-bowl-locked-up.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160204/00541133514/ridiculous-copyright-fight-still-keeping-only-video-first-super-bowl-locked-up.shtmlonly exists because a fan taped the TV broadcast, back in 1967. Now, as we're about to have the 50th Super Bowl, the fight has not only continued, but according to a NY Times article, the fight has been getting nastier.

That NYT article also, for the first time, names the guy who has the tape: Troy Haupt, whose father went into his office and recorded (most) of the game, believing such a tape might be valuable some day. For the past few years, all anyone knew was that a lawyer named Steve Harwood claimed to represent an anonymous client whose father had taped the game. The game itself had been shown on both CBS and NBC, but back in those days, archiving stuff wasn't a big deal, and neither broadcaster kept a copy of the tape. It wasn't that long before people realized that might be a mistake and by then there was nothing left (as far as anyone knew), and many argued that it was one of the great "lost treasures."

It was only after a 2005 Sports Illustrated article that talked about the fact that the video was lost, that a friend had reminded Haupt of the video in his mother's attic. And, then, of course, came the copyright fight. The NFL (as it has a habit of doing) insisted that it, and it alone, held the copyright on the video, and Haupt would be infringing on its copyright if he tried to do anything with the video. Of course, Haupt and his lawyer still held the physical tape (which they had restored by the Paley Center, and stored in a place to keep it safe). And thus, we get to the difference between the copyright on the content, and the ownership of the physical item.

Haupt asked the NFL for $1 million for the tape -- the price that Sports Illustrated had estimated such a tape might be worth. The NFL offered $30,000. And then there was a stalemate, with neither side budging for years, and the NFL constantly threatening a copyright lawsuit should Haupt do anything with the tape. With the 50th anniversary, Haupt thought that maybe the NFL would finally be willing to deal... but instead, the NFL showed a totally different video of Super Bowl 1 that was not the video of the actual broadcast. Instead, they went out and found a large number of "clips" from other sources, and patched it all together, claiming it's the entire game, even if it appears really disjointed.

Apparently, now that the NFL (which makes billions) has its "tape," it wants to be even more ridiculously petty towards Haupt. According to the NY Times:

And last week, Haupt was angry about another turn in the dispute. CBS backed out of a plan to interview him for a Super Bowl pregame segment that would have used a few minutes from the game. It had agreed to pay him $25,000 and give him two tickets to the Super Bowl. A producer was preparing to watch a restored, digital copy of the game at the Paley Center. A crew was ready to go to Manteo. He was going to tell his story, and perhaps the league would listen.

“It was my right to tell my story, and they were paying me for it,” Haupt said.

But according to his lawyer, Steve Harwood, the deal collapsed when he was told that the N.F.L. had ordered CBS not to pay him.

Just when you think the NFL can't get more petty, it does exactly that.

Even more bizarre is that according to the NY Times, the NFL is insisting that Haupt isn't even allowed to sell the physical tape to someone else:

Haupt owns the recording but not its content, which belongs to the N.F.L. If the league refuses to buy it, he cannot sell the tapes to a third party, like CBS or a collector who would like to own a piece of sports history that was believed to be lost. He would like to persuade the league to sell the tapes jointly and donate some of the proceeds to their favorite charities.....

This is bullshit, and hopefully Haupt's lawyer has explained to both Haupt and the NFL that this is bullshit. The First Sale Doctrine still exists in the US, and it's the reason that you can sell a copy of a physical book or painting without first getting permission from the copyright holder. The First Sale Doctrine separates the copyright from the tangible thing. So he absolutely can sell the tape, despite what the league and the article claim. Updated update: So I had originally crossed out this paragraph and thought maybe I'd gone too far with it, after someone pointed out that First Sale might not apply, because the first copy wasn't legally purchased. But as a few others have commented (both below and in email), that may not matter. The question is whether the work was "lawfully made" under the Copyright Act... and we know that taping video off the TV is considered okay under the Supreme Court's Betamax ruling. Thus, the first sale right could very well apply here.

But, even then, the NFL seems to make bogus copyfraud arguments, saying that if he does sell the tape, and the contents leak somehow, Haupt would be liable for any such release.

But that is unlikely to happen. A letter from the league to Harwood last year provided a sharp warning to Haupt. “Since you have already indicated that your client is exploring opportunities for exploitation of the N.F.L.’s Super Bowl I copyrighted footage with yet-unidentified third parties,” Dolores DiBella, a league counsel, wrote, “please be aware that any resulting copyright infringement will be considered intentional, subjecting your client and those parties to injunctive relief and special damages, among other remedies.”

Again, it's not clear that this is true. The purchasing party may very well be liable for any infringement that results, but Haupt should be in the clear once it's sold, so long as there's no evidence that the sale was simply a sham to get the video released. Bizarrely, the NY Times quotes a copyright law professor claiming that the NFL is actually correct here:

The law favors the league, said Jodi Balsam, a professor at Brooklyn Law School.

“What the league technically has is a property right in the game information and they are the only ones who can profit from that,” said Balsam, a former N.F.L. lawyer.

As David Post notes at the Washington Post, Professor Balsam is either woefully misinformed or was misquoted, because of course, you don't get to copyright "game information" at all. Merely the specific expression which was the broadcast. In fact, cases revolving around data (such as scores) and factual information (such as names and stats) have come down quite clearly saying that the league does not own "game information."

And I respectfully suggest that Prof. Balsam gets her copyright law wrong (or was misquoted) when she says that “the law favors the league” and that “the league technically has is a property right in the game information and they are the only ones who can profit from that.” The league doesn’t have a property right in “the game information” at all. [There’s another case squarely on point that discredits this idea, too — NBA v. Motorola from the Second Circuit (105 F.3d 842, 1997)]. The “game information” — who won, who lost, how many passes Bart Starr threw, how many time Kansas City ran running plays, the sequence of plays that led to Green Bay’s final touchdown, etc. etc. etc.] — is not protected by copyright at all; only the broadcast is protected. And there is nothing in copyright law that says that only the NFL can “profit” from that — Haupt is entitled to get as much money from selling his copy as he can.

There's also a separate issue that I haven't seen reported anywhere, which seems like it should be relevant. The game was in 1967, which was under the 1909 Copyright Act, which required registration ("formalities") in order to get the copyright. And, while it's quite likely that CBS and NBC, who both broadcast the game, likely had a deal in place with the NFL where the NFL retained the copyright, there's a question of whether or not the NFL actually did register that copyright in the first place. It's entirely possible that, given the fact that no one actually thought it was worth keeping a copy of the video, that similarly no one thought it was worth it to register the copyright.

And that leads us to the final point. The NFL itself apparently couldn't have been bothered to keep a copy of the video of the game itself, which is what makes the resulting situation particularly egregious and ridiculous. To claim ownership over the thing that you totally neglected to the point that you thought no longer existed seems ridiculous. It also raises the question of whether the NFL abandoned the copyright, even if it did register it. Copyright abandonment is a defense that someone accused of infringement can make, arguing that the copyright holder deliberately abandoned the work (leaving it in the public domain). Abandonment can be tough to show, however, since it requires showing that the copyright holder intended to abandon the copyright and performed an "overt act" to make it happen. You can argue that the intent was there in the failure to keep a single damn copy -- but is that an overt act? Usually the "overt act" is seen as something like a declaration that the work is in the public domain. That obviously doesn't exist here.

But, still, hopefully in the end people can recognize just how messed up copyright law is that it would reach this kind of stalemate, in which the public is deprived of such a historic event.

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]]>because copyrighthttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20160204/00541133514Thu, 4 Feb 2016 08:26:00 PSTKey And Peele To Livestream 'Sports Commentary' During An 'Upcoming Sports Game' That They Can't NameTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160202/11582833494/key-peele-to-livestream-sports-commentary-during-upcoming-sports-game-that-they-cant-name.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160202/11582833494/key-peele-to-livestream-sports-commentary-during-upcoming-sports-game-that-they-cant-name.shtmlremotely true, but pretty much everyone buying ads bows at the NFL altar. This has also given birth to creative ways for advertisers to poke fun at the NFL for being such asshats, such as the Newcastle Brewing's lovely entry a few years back, when it produced an advertisement about an advertisement it didn't make, in part because the NFL wouldn't allow them to say "Super Bowl."

Well, the tradition continues, it seems, with Key and Peele promoting Squarespace by setting up a website to do "Game Day Live Commentary", called Real Talk, with a timer countdown that appears to coincide with a big sporting event occurring this weekend. Notably absent at their site, with all kinds of information about what they're going to be doing in terms of "sports commentary" on a "football" game, is any mention of the phrase "Super Bowl." Because... the NFL. They even give a shoutout to this insanity in one of their promos.

While it would be easy to let frustration dominate while thinking about how the NFL's overbearing stance has given rise to any of this, instead let the futility of it all sink in and enjoy a laugh at the NFL's expense. Does anyone not know what Key and Peele are referring to? Of course not. Anyone confused as to what the timer at the top of the page is counting down to? Nope. Is there anyone at all that gives even a moment of thought to differentiating which ads feature the term "Super Bowl" and which use some stand-in term to dance around it? No, dear friends, there is not.

Meaning that the NFL has accomplished exactly nothing, other than to create an atmosphere where the advertisers they want to become sponsors choose instead to gain attention for themselves by mocking the NFL's attempt at protectionism instead. That isn't exactly the Streisand Effect, but it's something similar.

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]]>the-game-that-must-not-be-namedhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20160202/11582833494Thu, 17 Dec 2015 23:23:00 PSTAnd Away We Go: NFL Wants All Thursday Games To Be Streamed Next SeasonTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151216/14335533103/away-we-go-nfl-wants-all-thursday-games-to-be-streamed-next-season.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151216/14335533103/away-we-go-nfl-wants-all-thursday-games-to-be-streamed-next-season.shtml
We said the trickle would eventually become a waterfall, and it appears to be happening. As cord-cutting continues unabated, the last strand keeping the cable television cancellation orders from avalanching in has been access to sporting events. But what began a ways back as a couple of leagues experimenting with stream offerings has more recently seen teams and leagues look seriously at the future of broadcast deals and how to wedge internet streaming into them. The king of the professional sports leagues is, of course, the National Football League. You may recall that the NFL experimented earlier this year by offering one of the worst games being played overseas only via streaming on Yahoo's site. Well, while the viewership numbers didn't mirror a television broadcast, pretty much everyone that matters realized that the 2.5 million viewers per minute that Yahoo's stream generated was a big win for the first ever streamed-only NFL game.

The occasionally maligned TNF is still a big moneymaker for everyone involved. CBS is paying $300 million this year, and doesn’t even get to broadcast a full slate. (CBS produces all 16 games, but NFL Network airs the final eight.) The ratings are great, and consistently up from previous years. And yet, Thursday night seems like the place for the NFL to experiment. Unlike all its other long-term TV deals, the NFL has been going year-to-year with TNF, and the bidding for the next contract, just opening now, is for a one-year deal with a league option.

But here’s the really interesting part:

The league also sent RFPs to several digital companies, like Google, Yahoo, Apple and Amazon, to stream the entire Thursday night schedule on a non-exclusive basis, sources said. The league’s initial plan would have the digital streams serve as a simulcast of the television production — with the same ads and in-game production features.

What's interesting in this is that whoever is streaming the game would be simply rebroadcasting it over the internet, rather than having to sell separate advertising content. That would be both useful and limiting for the stream-provider. Useful, because it avoids the annoyance of repetitive ads due to low inventory, but limiting in that it limits how the stream-provider can monetize the stream.

But what the NFL's interest in streaming should really do is strike fear in the heart of businesses that have been burying their heads in the sand when it comes to cord-cutting, because wider sports streaming is going to hasten the pace.

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]]>its-beginninghttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20151216/14335533103Wed, 28 Oct 2015 14:02:01 PDTYahoo Pumps Up Viewership Numbers For NFL Game By Autoplaying It On Your Yahoo Home PageTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151026/06573232634/yahoo-pumps-up-viewership-numbers-nfl-game-autoplaying-it-your-yahoo-home-page.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151026/06573232634/yahoo-pumps-up-viewership-numbers-nfl-game-autoplaying-it-your-yahoo-home-page.shtml
Over the summer, when the NFL and Yahoo inked a deal for a one-game test run of an NFL game exclusively streamed by a service provider, I tried to temper everyone's excitement. Baby steps, is what I called the deal, which it absolutely was. In many ways, the NFL either set this all up to minimize risk to its reputation and revenue, or set it up to fail, depending on who you believe. The game featured two teams expected to be bad, with followings and markets on the smaller side of the league, and the game was played overseas in the UK absurdly early in the morning in all the time zones state-side. That meant that the game would never have the viewership that a prime-time matchup between two good teams might have, but that probably worked for the NFL's test run, in that any failure would be minimized for all the reasons listed above.

Sunday's live stream marked the first time that a single company had distributed an NFL telecast all around the world via the Internet. It was widely seen as a test for future NFL streaming efforts. The NFL said Monday that it was "thrilled with the results." Technical reviews were mixed, with many fans reporting a seamless live stream, while others ran into connectivity trouble. Average viewership per minute was high by web live-streaming standards, but low by NFL TV standards.

The average viewership per minute reported by Yahoo was about 2.5 million, which is quite large by streaming standards. By comparison, though, that viewership is something like a third or a quarter of the viewership for most NFL television broadcasts. Still, considering the game started in the wee hours of the morning (4:30am Central Time, for instance), nobody was scoffing at the numbers. In fact, the NFL announced it was "thrilled" with the results.

And that really should have been enough. Unfortunately, Yahoo also stated that 15 million viewers had watched at least part of the live stream as well, which was quickly shown to be largely bullshit the company concocted by counting, oh, anyone who visited Yahoo's home page.

All morning long, if you visited Yahoo.com on a PC, you were greeted with an autoplay stream of the broadcast, including commercials, but without sound. Yahoo says 43 million people a day visit its homepage. That number is presumably lower on a Sunday morning. But if it can get a big chunk of those visitors to see a couple minutes each, it will be in good shape — at least by the low bar it laid out for itself.

You're not helping, Yahoo. Look, wider streaming of professional sports is going to happen. And advertisers and leagues are going to end up coming along for the ride because, no matter what your local cable company tells you, cord-cutting is a thing and it isn't slowing down. But trying these little gimmicks to fudge the numbers will only set back the willingness of leagues and advertisers to jump into this. It creates a trust problem, similar to that experienced by other internet advertising gimmicks, where ads are reported to have been seen after being autoplayed, whether they were truly watched or not. This was a big moment for those of us that believe streaming sports is the future. Whatever you think about the viewership results, they weren't disappointing the principal players involved in this entertainment game. For Yahoo to sully the waters in a transparent and obvious way was silly, as it could only hurt its own effort to secure future streaming deals.

Still, the rest of the news about the streamed NFL game was positive.

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]]>your-not-helpinghttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20151026/06573232634Tue, 13 Oct 2015 04:21:55 PDTJust About Everything About Twitter Suspending Deadspin And SBNation Accounts Is RidiculousMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151012/22104032520/just-about-everything-about-twitter-suspending-deadspin-sbnation-accounts-is-ridiculous.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151012/22104032520/just-about-everything-about-twitter-suspending-deadspin-sbnation-accounts-is-ridiculous.shtmldisabled two well-known sports media Twitter feeds, both for supposedly infringing on copyrights by posting GIFs of sports highlights. Almost everything about this story is ridiculous and highlights just how screwed up copyright law is today. Let's count the ways:

The idea that these GIFs were infringing seems ridiculous. There's a very, very, very strong fair use argument here. They were showing tiny (sound-free) tidbits from college and professional football games. No one is using these in place of watching the actual games. In fact, these GIFs almost certainly act as strong advertising for getting people to actually watch games.

The idea that Twitter suspended these accounts is somewhat understandable, but still ridiculous. Yes, the DMCA in 512(i)(1)(A) requires service providers to implement a "repeat infringer policy," and that policy must "provide for the termination" of said repeat infringers. So, for this bit of ridiculous, we can blame the DMCA that sort of forces this on Twitter.

Even so, we can still blame Twitter somewhat for not standing up to the NFL and XOS Digital (which has the broadcast rights for a bunch of college football games) and saying "this is fair use."

Even given the requirement to terminate repeat infringers, doesn't it seem totally screwed up that a major channel for major media properties can simply be disappeared? This is, again, an example of why the Section 230 safe harbors are so much better than the DMCAs. Deadspin and SBNation weren't "pirate sites." They were doing something that tons of professional media have done for ages -- and suddenly they lost their accounts? That's ridiculous.

What the hell are the NFL and XOS Digital thinking? The NFL has claimed that it never asked for the accounts to be shut down -- it just wanted the tweets with the GIFs to be taken down. But, of course, that makes no sense. Under the DMCA, again, if the tweets are infringing, at some point it will hit the "repeat infringer policy" so the NFL's statement is meaningless, and suggests a lack of knowledge of copyright law. Given that this is the same sports league that flat out lies at the end of every game with its copyright message that claims you can't even repeat "accounts of the game" without "express written permission," perhaps it's not a surprise that it wouldn't understand this part of copyright law either.

What the hell are the NFL and XOS Digital thinking, part II. Who the hell is this helping? I'm assuming that both will make vague references to protecting their copyrights and about how valuable broadcast deals are. But, again, no one who put more than 3 seconds into thinking about this thinks that people are suddenly going to give up on their expensive cable package because they can watch GIFs on Twitter. That's not how this works. And really, if their broadcast deals are so fragile as to be undermined by GIFs on Twitter, perhaps there's a bigger problem there to address.

All in all, the whole thing is yet another example of the ridiculous things that come about because of our dopey copyright system.

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]]>copyright law is ridiculoushttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20151012/22104032520Wed, 22 Jul 2015 04:29:13 PDTDueling Lawsuits Threaten The NFL, DirecTV's Annoying Sunday Ticket ExclusiveKarl Bodehttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150716/12384131665/dueling-lawsuits-threaten-nfl-directvs-annoying-sunday-ticket-exclusive.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150716/12384131665/dueling-lawsuits-threaten-nfl-directvs-annoying-sunday-ticket-exclusive.shtmlhas eased up a little on the restriction that you need to subscribe to DirecTV's other services to get Sunday Ticket, trying to order the standalone broadband-only service over at the DirecTV website results in the user being accosted with a bevy of fine print:

"*NFLSUNDAYTICKET.TV service is only available to non-DIRECTV customers who live in a select apartment building where DIRECTV service is not available, attend select universities, or live in one of the following metro areas: New York City, Philadelphia, or San Francisco. NFLSUNDAYTICKET.TV UNIVERSITY only available to students enrolled in eligible universities. Blackout rules and other conditions apply.

Even if you qualify, it's still a pretty far cry from services like MLB.TV, which is available for as little as $60 a year. Each time the exclusive arrangement is up for renewal, wiser NFL fans quietly pray the NFL will realize the benefits of broader, less-exclusive distribution of games, but ultimately a huge check from DirecTV almost always wins out (this last check clocked in at around $12 billion for an eight year deal).

There is, however, some fleeting legal fisticuffs on the horizon that might (but probably won't) shake up this cozy arrangement. Last month, DirecTV and the NFL were hit with a class action lawsuit (pdf) alleging that the companies' exclusive distribution arrangement for NFL games under the NFL Sunday Ticket brand violates antitrust laws. The suit took specific aim at the inflexibility of the packages sold to consumers:

"The league and DirecTV offer NFL Sunday Ticket only as all-or-nothing. Purchasers of NFL Sunday Ticket must buy all out-of-market games for all teams even if they are only interested in watching the games of a particular team. Likewise, consumers must buy the complete season of games and may not purchase individual games."

Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League have been hit with similar suits (which the NFL is also included in), and both leagues have so far responded with slightly-more-flexible fare (like NBA's League Pass, which allows the purchase of individual games). The NFL, however, is also now facing a second lawsuit (pdf) from a sports bar owner in San Francisco alleging that locking bars to DirecTV service to extract "monopoly rents" (From $2,500 to $120,000 depending on size) constitutes an "illegal monopoly":

"Defendants have colluded to sell the out-of-market NFL Sunday afternoon games only through DirecTV. Such an arrangement eliminates competition in the distribution of out-of-market Sunday afternoon games and requires anyone wishing to view these games to subscribe to DirecTV and purchase NFL Sunday Ticket at the supracompetitive price dictated by DirecTV."

It's unclear if either suit will convince a judge to blow up the NFL and DirecTV's cozy cuddling, but a successful suit could have far-reaching implications. AT&T's $49 billion acquisition of DirecTV is contingent on DirecTV maintaining its exclusive relationship with the NFL, meaning AT&T can walk away should the arrangement crumble. Regardless of the suit(s), you'd hope that the NFL some day wakes up and realizes the benefits of broader, more flexible NFL game distribution when it comes to battling pirated game streams and users who are having to use VPN to get cheaper international NFL streaming options.

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]]>illegal-shift-in-the-backfieldhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150716/12384131665Thu, 4 Jun 2015 21:21:50 PDTThe Revolution Will Be Babysteps: NFL/Yahoo Ink Deal For Exclusive Web-Stream Of Bad Football GameTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150603/10182031207/revolution-will-be-babysteps-nflyahoo-ink-deal-exclusive-web-stream-bad-football-game.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150603/10182031207/revolution-will-be-babysteps-nflyahoo-ink-deal-exclusive-web-stream-bad-football-game.shtml
We've been going on about how we're on the cusp of significant change in the way major sports leagues handle digital streaming for quite a while. While I've long made the argument that one of the few strands by which the pay-for-television landscape is grasping onto yesterday is the broadcast rights of professional and college sports, recent announcements from both Major League Baseball and the NFL, when combined with the NBA's new broadcasting deals, seemed like the starting line in the race to cord-cutting. That said, the race is going to be a marathon and not a sprint, peppered with the kinds of babysteps in the most recent announcement concerning the NFL.

The NFL said in a statement Wednesday that Yahoo is its "exclusive partner to deliver the first-ever live stream of an NFL game to a global audience across devices and for free." The October 25 Buffalo Bills-Jacksonville Jaguars game will be groundbreaking because it won't be shown on television in the United States like every other NFL game is. (It will still air in the Bills' and Jaguars' home markets.). It will be available for streaming, with ads attached, all around the world.

Now, before all the football fans in the audience get up in arms over the quality of this particular match, don't bother. If you're a proponent of expanded sports streaming, this is 100% a win, even if watching a Bills vs. Jags game is less enjoyable than pulling metal splinters out of the eyeball of a cute puppy. The NFL is a monster, the best possible partner proponents like me could have hoped for, and even the worst NFL game typically does no worse than decent in terms of ratings. Imagine what it will tell the NFL if the Yahoo stream of this game beats past viewership numbers of its televised counterparts? They're setting the bar low and it will look significant if there's even a modicum of success.

Estimates for the sum Yahoo paid for the right to this broadcast have it anywhere between ten and twenty million dollars, making larger deals with Yahoo, or other players (hi, YouTube!) feasible as broadcast rights replacements to CBS, NBC, Fox and ESPN. Yahoo isn't bullshitting in playing this up.

Yahoo is promoting the event this way: "For the first time in NFL history, anyone with an internet connection can tune in, exclusively on Yahoo, from anywhere to watch a live football game for free. Whether you're on your phone, tablet, laptop, console or connected device -- we've got you covered."

Again, it's a step and not a leap, but as steps go it is closer to the moon landing than dipping a toe in the water.

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]]>and-so-it-beginshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150603/10182031207Fri, 1 May 2015 04:15:07 PDTESPN & NFL Network Still Pretending Twitter Doesn't Exist During NFL DraftTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150427/09452030807/espn-nfl-network-still-pretending-twitter-doesnt-exist-during-nfl-draft.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150427/09452030807/espn-nfl-network-still-pretending-twitter-doesnt-exist-during-nfl-draft.shtml
If you follow technology news long enough and you'll be imbued with a sense of wonder at how quickly most things technology-related progress. Social media rollouts blaze ahead and become dominant quickly. The specs inside our machines continue to balloon. Brand new tech comes out and is adopted by the younger generations with an ease that seems downright impossible. Companies, because they have to, embrace the speed of new technology as well. Everything is faster, more content-rich. It seems the early adopters these days are big corporations eager to gain an edge through the technology the public already is or soon will be using.

Which brings me to this question: have ya'll heard of Twitter? Yes, yes, I figured that you have, but I'd like to know whether any of you Tweeps out there happen to know anybody at the National Football League? Because they seem to think that Twitter is a thing that can be controlled when it comes to the NFL draft. It's been a couple of years since I first laughed at the NFL for forcing ESPN and the NFL Network, two of its broadcasting partners, to agree not to tweet draft picks before they were announced on television. Two years later, a lifetime in technological progress terms, and the NFL is stilll doing this, apparently.

ESPN and NFL Network both have rights to televise the NFL draft, and, as they have in the past, this year they will show the good and just Roger Goodell that they value the product he’s bestowed upon them by not allowing their reporters to tweet picks before the commissioner announces them at the podium. That NFL Network agrees to this makes sense. (It has no choice, since it’s a glorified PR channel for the league.) What’s ESPN’s excuse?

Well, some of us argue that ESPN has nothing to do with news and is instead a self-marketing institution built on the leagues for which it broadcasts. To that end, the "journalists" are actually marketing agents, doing the bidding of the ultimate customer, the leagues, including the NFL. Taken at face value, the agreement for ESPN reporters to refuse to tweet out much-sought information they've obtained is an abdication of any journalistic ethics they might pretend to have.

But the larger question is: who does the NFL think they're fooling? After all, this scheme would work wonders to control information about draft picks...if Twitter users only followed NFL Network and ESPN employees. That isn't how this works as a sports fan, of course, meaning that anyone who wants to get quicker information on the draft will certainly have it. That renders this whole exercise pretty damned meaningless for the NFL.

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]]>on-the-clockhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150427/09452030807Fri, 27 Mar 2015 18:18:00 PDTBoth The NFL And MLB Look To Expand Streaming Offerings By Ending Local BlackoutsTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150325/10385630426/it-has-begun-reports-indicated-both-nfl-mlb-to-expand-streaming-offerings-sans-local-blackouts.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150325/10385630426/it-has-begun-reports-indicated-both-nfl-mlb-to-expand-streaming-offerings-sans-local-blackouts.shtml
Bear witness to the genesis of a new era, fellow sports fans. I've begged and pleaded in the past for the major professional sports leagues to take the harness off of the ability to stream games. Even as the trend of cord-cutting has progressed along nicely, I have always argued that the only dam keeping a flood of cord-cutters at bay has been professional sports broadcast deals. Those deals have almost universally been saddled with local blackout restrictions, making streaming games all but useless for the majority of fans. The past few years, however, have seen inched progress towards wider availabitily for streamed offerings. The NBA's most recent contract went out of its way to make sure streaming is expanded, for instance, not to mention the deal Dish and ESPN made to make the cable channel's broadcasts more accessible for streaming. But those were baby steps, too often leashed by a cable subscription requirement.

On Monday, the NFL announced the Oct. 25 regular season game between Jacksonville and Buffalo will be put up for bid on national digital platforms. The game is being played in London, meaning the broadcast will begin at 9:30 a.m. ET and 6:30 PT. That's not exactly prime time for U.S. fans, or broadcast television, but it is 'prime time' in China, where the NFL is struggling to gain a toehold.

"It's a one game test. We will evaluate fan feedback," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said via an email exchange. "It's too early to tell about the future [of streaming games]. Will test this season with the one game and evaluate after."

Separately, the NFL said it's going to drop its so-called blackout rule, which prevents local broadcasts of games if they're not sold out 72 hours before kickoff. NFL media executive Brian Rolapp said the league is "testing alternative ways to distribute games," The NYT reports, and acknowledged the obvious: "The world is changing very quickly."

If this seems like a small step, you don't know how savvy the folks in the NFL's media department are. They absolutely know where the trends have us all heading regarding media consumption and I can promise you they are keenly aware of how many people are currently watching streaming NFL games on illegitimate sites. The most consumed sport in the United States doesn't turn on a dime, but the league also doesn't put up this kind of test balloon without having a fairly certain idea of how it's going to play with its customers. Assuming the quality, cost (free?), and accessibility of this test game is anything remotely comparable to, say, baseball's MLB.TV offering, expect this to end up as an insanely successful test-run. I'd actually say that this test game feels more like the NFL looking for an excuse to jump fully into a streaming offering than some kind of fact-finding mission. After all, you only drop the blackout rule in conjunction with expanding streaming if you expect the locals to run with the offering full-force. And they will, I assure you.

The NFL's DirectTV and network deals mean streaming won't explode immediately, but everyone can see what the NFL is doing to position itself for the future.

Given its agreement with DirecTV and television networks -- the NFL signed $27 billion worth of contracts in 2011 -- the league will be restricted on what it can offer online, at least in the near term. But the NFL is "a master of dicing and splicing content in order to extract the greatest value," [media analyst Walt] Piecyk says. "It's not like they're committing to put a bunch of games [online] but I think they want to get more comfortable so if Google or Apple or Amazon comes down the pike and says 'we want to buy a larger chunk of games' they can get comfortable on tech front."

And speaking of MLB.TV, reports are that professional baseball is due to get its own expanded streaming offering. The MLB.TV service has long been the standard in sports streaming, with no other league offering really even coming close. The problem, however, was that local games were blacked out, so the service was only useful for out-of-town fans or die-hard baseball fans that will watch any MLB game any time it's available (me, for example). If recent reports are to be believed, however, MLB is looking to take a small step to changing the blackout rules for streaming.

Major League Baseball is expected to announce in the next few days a deal with a national distributor, like a wireless provider, to stream local games of every MLB team, a source close to the situation said Thursday.

To stream games of the New York teams, fans would have to be a customer of the distributor and pay for the YES Network or SNY, the regional sports networks (RSNs) that carry Yank and Met games, respectively. The price to stream has not yet been set.

This is an imperfect first step, of course, particularly as it carries with it the anchor of either a cable subscription, a specific wireless device provider, or both, but it's an important step in the right direction. It's something akin, actually, to the DirectTV deal the NFL has, except that it's more mobile and more widely available on a variety of devices. You should also expect any deal MLB signs for this streaming to be less locked in than the NFL/DirectTV deal, because, again, everyone knows where this is all heading. And, if the reports are true, even the television broadcasters are resigning themselves to reality.

Talks between MLB and Fox Sports, which owns 15 RSNs, including YES; Comcast, which owns six, including a minority stake in SNY; and DirecTV, which owns four, have been on-again, off-again for more than a year. The talks have accelerated in the last two weeks, and both sides are optimistic a deal will be reached before Opening Day, April 6. Under that agreement, fans would deal directly with their pay-TV provider.

Is it as perfect a solution as simply working out deals to unleash the local broadcasts on the MLB.TV stream that customers have been watching all the non-local teams on? No, absolutely not, but this first iteration's imperfection will only catalyze MLB to go the correct route in the future. Because the trends are clear: streaming is up and cable subscriptions are down. Even if the NFL and MLB don't get this right the first time, they will absolutely be forced to get it right in the near future.

Either way, one eventual reality is coming ever-closer to fruition: cable television, and perhaps television as a whole, may soon be over.

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]]>bye-bye-cablehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150325/10385630426Thu, 22 Jan 2015 20:57:20 PSTThe Trademark Lawyers For The Seattle Seahawks Have Apparently Lost Their MindsTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150122/13301729781/trademark-lawyers-seattle-seahawks-have-apparently-lost-their-minds.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150122/13301729781/trademark-lawyers-seattle-seahawks-have-apparently-lost-their-minds.shtml
You may recall that there have been recent trademark issues over the term "12th Man", which Texas A&M insists is its alone to use, even as the Seattle Seahawks perhaps use it most famously in describing their rabid crowds and the deafening noise their home stadium produces. Well, on the eve of the Seahawks returning to the Super Bowl, the trademark lawyers for the team have decided to make a run at getting their own trademark on the number "12" ... and just about everything else they could think of as well.

Despite that long history of onomatopoeia in the sport, the Seahawks are now trying to trademark the word “boom” and use it for the team’s own purposes. The effort is part of a quiet legal strategy in which the team has filed some two dozen trademark applications since October 2013 for phrases such as “Go Hawks” and the number “12.”

Football and the word “boom” have been married for decades, long before someone nicknamed Seahawks defenders the “Legion of Boom.” Way back in the 1960s, Minnesota Vikings running back Bill Brown was known as “Boom-Boom” for his similarly punishing style. Ex-coach John Madden bellowed “boom” during play-by-play TV broadcasts so often that, by the 1990s, it became his personal catchword, used in commercials featuring the popular pitchman.

No matter, apparently, because the attorneys are here to make sure the long history of "boom" and "numbers" in football belong to them for commercial purposes. The idea that a word that describes a sound could be locked up by a team, not to mention a number that describes the fanbase as a part of the team, is absolutely ludicrous. But the flag bearing the number "12" has already been approved for trademark. We'll have to see about the "boom." As for "Go Hawks", good luck to the Seahawks because there are very interested parties lining up to object.

The Seahawks’ aggressive quest for new revenue has led both the NBA and NHL to try to slow one of the trademark applications. And while Seattle’s owners were once sued over the use of “12th Man,” the team is now trying to seize control of many other variations of the term.

You can bet the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA and the Chicago Blackhawks in the NHL will be throwing lawyers at the Seahawks' lame attempt to lock up language. Those two teams alone have an insane amount of merchandise in place bearing the "Go Hawks" language. So why haven't those teams ever tried to trademark the term? Well, because unlike the Seahawks, most professional sports teams are surprisingly lax when it comes to trademarking tangential language.

Scott Andresen, a sports entertainment attorney in Chicago, said the Seahawks’ pursuit of so many different trademarks contrasts with conduct by other teams, even those with a national brand such as the Dallas Cowboys.

“They’ve always been a little aggressive about securing intellectual property for themselves,” said Andresen, who has worked with other professional franchises. “They’ve really taken the position that the more intellectual property, the better.”

Just in the past few months, the Seahawks have petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a chance to oppose a film company’s application to trademark a geographical name featured in the blockbuster “Hunger Games” books and movies: “District 12.”...While the Seahawks’ team owners have submitted 24 trademark applications in the past 15 months, officials with the Green Bay Packers, last weekend’s opponent, have filed just 36 applications in the past 40 or so years, according to federal records.

So the Seahawks are especially insane when it comes to trying to trademark anything and everything. Perhaps they learned this deviant behavior at the hands of Texas A&M, and the cycle simply repeats itself with the victim becoming the perpetrator. Or maybe there's some kind of gas leak in the offices of the team's attorneys. Either way, it's probably time for a well-being check.

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]]>trademark-the-planethttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150122/13301729781Fri, 9 Jan 2015 19:39:00 PSTSome Jerks (Probably The NFL) Got A Hilarious Romance Novel Parody Removed From Amazon Over IPTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150109/10055229653/some-jerks-probably-nfl-got-hilarious-romance-novel-parody-removed-amazon-over-ip.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150109/10055229653/some-jerks-probably-nfl-got-hilarious-romance-novel-parody-removed-amazon-over-ip.shtmlfan fiction for several reasons. I think it's awesome how a community can be so devoted to a particular something as to want to author their own creations around that something. I think it's cool when the original creators manage to use fan fiction as a mode to interact with their fans. Perhaps most of all, I love how fan fiction allows creative people to get silly on the subject of their work with parody and humor. For these reasons and more, I was particularly pleased when Amazon announced that they wanted to allow sales of this kind of work.

I'm less pleased to find that there are many ways in which those works can be taken down. See, Lacey Noonan is an author who goes out of her way to create parody novellas making fun of the romance genre. She recently released her short book about a housewife wanting to have sex with an NFL player.

Yes, the story quite prominently features Rob Gronkowski, New England Patriots tight end, and general all-around party boy. You know, this friggin' guy.

Yo soy fiesta. Yo soy fiesta. I am party. That's as Gronkowski as it gets. And it makes him a great subject for a laughable romance novella parody. Unfortunately, A Gronking To Remember has been removed from the Amazon store. Why? You see that small patch on Gronk's sleeve on the cover of the book that reads "MHK"? It's a tribute patch for the wife of the Patriot's owner and it appears to be the reason the book was taken down.

We're told the online retailer pulled the book because someone — perhaps the Patriots or the National Football League — objected to the book jacket, specifically the photo of Gronkowski that features the "MHK" patch on his uniform. (The team began wearing the patch in 2011 after the death Myra Kraft, wife of Patriots owner Robert Kraft.) In an e-mail, author Lacey Noonan told us she hadn't anticipated any problem with the Gronk picture.

"I didn't understand at the outset that Robert Kraft wouldn't want Myra Kraft and her philanthropical works associated with this," Noonan said in the e-mail. "Total newbie ignorance on my part. I believe — and hope — that's the only problem anyone has with the book since it is such obvious satire and parody."

If you look at the cover with an eye towards intellectual property concerns, you can clearly see how the team or the NFL might have concerns over the team's uniform appearing on the jacket, though it also seems clear that measures were taken to minimize how much the team logo and the uniform appears at all. But for this to be over the patch? And for that patch to result in the takedown of a hilarious piece of parody? It seems that someone needs to explain what rights exist for whom on a patch that consists of three letters, because we can't lose this literary treasure to that.

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]]>gronk-gronk-gronkhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150109/10055229653Tue, 23 Dec 2014 04:02:00 PSTHow ESPN's Purely Descriptive Trademark Turned A Saturday Into A ThursdayTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141222/07575529501/how-espns-purely-descriptive-trademark-turned-saturday-into-thursday.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141222/07575529501/how-espns-purely-descriptive-trademark-turned-saturday-into-thursday.shtmlnonsense about their restrictions on using the term "Super Bowl" to actually trying to trademark euphemisms of their other trademarks, it all just comes off as over the top. Yet, even being aware of all that, perhaps you were watching football this Saturday like me and, like me, you were quite amused that the NFL Network's broadcast was being branded as "Thursday Night Football: Saturday Edition." Pretty silly, right? Why not just call it "Saturday Night Football"? Well, because trademark, of course.

Yes, that's right, through the magic of ESPN holding a trademark on the term "Saturday Night Football", a Saturday was transformed into a Thursday. I've already contacted my nine-to-five employer to assure them that I was unaware of this sorcery and to see if I will be disciplined for not coming into work on Sathursday. They've assured me that they have no idea what I'm talking about.

And, of course, what makes all of this so damned infuriating is that ESPN's trademark is so unbelievably and obviously purely descriptive that it makes one wonder how in the world it was ever granted to begin with. The NFL's lawyers in particular appear to have been muzzled by whoever in the league is negotiating with broadcast partners, because ESPN's mark is just begging for opposition. Instead, we got "Thursday Night Football: Saturday Edition", which would make as much sense as "Thursday Night Football: Baseball Edition." Which is to say, no sense at all.

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]]>mind-equals-blownhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20141222/07575529501Thu, 2 Oct 2014 04:01:00 PDTFCC Votes To End Its Sports Blackout RuleTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140930/11580428681/fcc-votes-to-end-its-sports-blackout-rule.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140930/11580428681/fcc-votes-to-end-its-sports-blackout-rule.shtmlrules in sports: they're really stupid. Sure, perhaps there was some semblance of logic at one time behind the theory that if the stadium seats weren't filled, a team would pull a game off of television to encourage attendance, but the point is that in the age of massive television deals that are so much more important for a team or league's revenue compared with stadium sales, such that some teams try to fake their way into televising games, finding excuses to keep games off of the money-machine that is television is just plain silly.

What you may not know is that the leagues have had a federal partner in blacking out games for quite a while in the FCC. While the NFL is really the only league left that is bothering with blackout rules, they've now lost that partner as the FCC has unanimously voted to repeal its support for sports blackouts.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission voted 5-0 to repeal the sports blackout rule. Currently, the NFL will not allow broadcasters in a team’s home market to air games that have not sold out. This unfriendly practice is a matter of private contract between the league and the broadcasters, restricting what a sports fan can watch in the process. The FCC’s sports blackout rule prevented cable systems from carrying those games, as well. Although the repeal of the sports blackout rule is no guarantee that cable viewers will be able to see blacked-out games, now the NFL will have to arrange for blackouts solely through private contracting. The rule applies to any sports league, but only the NFL currently blacks-out games on local broadcast.

This, believe it or not, is an important step. Not because it represents any dramatic shift in televising games in and of itself, but because it's the beginning of the lift on blackout restrictions in general. Television blackouts due to attendance are the low-hanging fruit when it comes to blackouts in general, but if this starts building momentum such that the growing masses of cable-cutters can finally get local sports games with their internet packages somewhere down the road, it's a big deal. Because, as I've argued before, the only dam holding back an overflowing river of cable-cutters is professional and college sports. Take that away and the river runs wild.

This FCC vote, by the way, comes at the behest of a petition from Public Knowledge.

The vote follows a petition Public Knowledge filed with its allies that argued the FCC should end this archaic rule as an unnecessary intervention in the marketplace on behalf of the NFL, one of the most powerful sports leagues in the world. The following statement can be attributed to John Bergmayer, Senior Staff Attorney at Public Knowledge:

“We’re pleased that our petition, the voices of sports fans and TV viewers, and the evidence has persuaded the FCC to act on the public’s behalf. Private parties should not be able to use government regulations as an excuse to limit fans’ access to their local teams."

To be clear, local broadcasts can still be blacked out by the NFL, but that won't last much longer. Already there are rumblings from the NFL that indicate they realize that their product is far better consumed on television, and that fantasy football is pushing a larger consumption of multiple games throughout a day, rather than driving dedicated fans to a single stadium for the day. Good on the FCC for getting this right, even though they probably should have made this move a few decades ago.

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]]>game-timehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140930/11580428681Thu, 18 Sep 2014 07:50:00 PDTOnly Surviving Recording Of The Very First Superbowl Is Because A Fan Recorded It, But You Can't See It, Because CopyrightMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140917/06061528548/only-surviving-recording-very-first-superbowl-is-because-fan-recorded-it-you-cant-see-it-because-copyright.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140917/06061528548/only-surviving-recording-very-first-superbowl-is-because-fan-recorded-it-you-cant-see-it-because-copyright.shtmlculture being lost -- but also how unauthorized copies (the proverbial "damn dirty pirates") have at least saved a few such treasures from complete destruction. There was, for example, the "lost" ending to one of the movie versions of Little Shop of Horrors that was saved thanks to someone uploading it to YouTube. Over in the UK, a lost episode of Dad's Army was saved due to a private recording. However, Sherwin Siy points out that the very first Super Bowl -- Super Bowl I, as they put it -- was basically completely lost until a tape that a fan made showed up in someone's attic in 2005. Except, that footage still hasn't been made available, perhaps because of the NFL's standard "we own everything" policy. From Cracked:

It sounds crazy nowadays, but during the '60s, NBC and CBS, who broadcast Super Bowl I, essentially had no archiving policy for anything other than primetime shows, so neither one kept a copy of the historic game beyond a few random clips. And seeing as home video technology was still a few years away, the broadcast footage was considered lost forever until a mostly-complete recording turned up in a Pennsylvania attic in 2005, made by a fan at a video production company.

And we have to emphasize "mostly" here -- the copy is missing much of the third quarter, the entire halftime show, and several smaller bits. The Paley Center for Media tried reconstructing these parts using official sideline footage and fan-made audio recordings, but the last we heard about the project was way back in 2011, right around the time the NFL started claiming sole copyright ownership of the footage. Probably a coincidence.

Other reports explain in more detail that, indeed, the NFL stepped in to "protect" the work it had failed to originally protect:

The NFL has claimed ownership of the broadcast itself and while the Paley Center was allowed to keep a copy of the game, it cannot show it without permission from the owner of the videotapes, who reportedly would like to sell the tapes.

The original WSJ article about all of this details the NFL's claim to the man who found the tape, who has remained nameless.

Mr. Harwood, the attorney, says he contacted the NFL in 2005 about the tape. He says the league sent him a letter on Dec. 16, 2005 claiming the NFL was the exclusive owner of the copyright. Mr. Harwood says the NFL offered his client $30,000 for the tape and his client declined. Mr. Harwood said his client would like to sell the tapes and make them available to the public if the legal issues can be resolved.

So the NFL failed to save it. A fan did. And now no one can see it because the NFL is claiming copyright over the footage it failed to protect. Great to see copyright "protecting" culture once again, huh?

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]]>dirty-pirateshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140917/06061528548Mon, 8 Sep 2014 15:48:00 PDTMarketing Failure: Microsoft Pays NFL To Use Its Surface Tablets -- And People Still Call Them 'iPad-Like Tools'Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140908/07345728454/marketing-failure-microsoft-pays-nfl-to-use-its-surface-tablets-people-still-call-them-ipad-like-tools.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140908/07345728454/marketing-failure-microsoft-pays-nfl-to-use-its-surface-tablets-people-still-call-them-ipad-like-tools.shtml"iPad-like tools." Microsoft Surface tablets are being allowed on the sidelines as part of a $400 million deal between Microsoft and the NFL. And Microsoft is promoting the Surface as "the official tablet of the NFL." And, in the end, all anyone remembers is that it's an "iPad-like tool." I wonder if the guy who signed that deal for Microsoft has lined up a new job yet...

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]]>didn't-get-the-memohttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140908/07345728454Thu, 3 Jul 2014 16:11:14 PDTJimmy Graham Loses $5 Million In Part For Listing Himself As A Tight End On TwitterTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140702/11394827763/jimmy-graham-loses-5-million-part-listing-himself-as-tight-end-twitter.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140702/11394827763/jimmy-graham-loses-5-million-part-listing-himself-as-tight-end-twitter.shtml
We've had a great many discussions about how employers react to the social media content of their employees. There have been questions over whether employers should be able to fire staff for Facebook content, whether staff can be perma-banned from using social media sites at all, or even whether or not employees should be required to cough up social media passwords to their employers. These stories tend to focus on an employer doing something that makes the employee uncomfortable.

Unable to negotiate a deal, the Saints slapped Jimmy Graham with a franchise tag as a tight end. Graham disagreed, declaring himself a receiver, in order that he be paid like one. The dispute went to arbitration, and today arbitrator Stephen Burbank came down on the Saints' side. The difference is significant. A franchise tag pays a player the average of the five highest-paid players at that position, and WRs—especially the top tier—are paid better than their TE counterparts. A ruling favorable to Graham would have seen him make $12.312 million this season; instead, he'll make $7.035 million.

For you non-sports fans out there, the reason for the average price difference is due to the fact that a team's wide receivers are generally more skilled players compared with tight ends. Typically, receivers primarily, you know, receive, as in the ball, typically on pass plays. Tight ends traditionally occasionally catch passes, but are often used as on-the-line blockers as well and aren't considered to have the catching, jumping, and speed skills of a receiver. For you non-Jimmy Graham fans out there, Graham breaks the stereotype completely, having led his team in receptions, caught yards, and receiving touchdowns. His argument that he wasn't really a tight end had a ton of merit. Unfortunately for Jimmy Graham, the arbiter took to the opinion of Jimmy Graham in part when rendering his decision.

The arbitrator's decision isn't public, but dribs and drabs of Burbank's reasoning have come out. (Ian Rapaport and Albert Breer are your best sources.) Among Burbank's justifications:

-Graham attends TE position meetings. -Graham was drafted by the Saints as a TE.-Graham lists himself as a TE in his Twitter bio. (Yes, the Saints argued this.) Burbank, via Rapaport: "Mr. Graham refers to himself as a tight end in social media that he controls and his agents do so as well." -Graham lined up within four yards of the offensive line on a majority of his snaps last season.

Oops. Kind of hard to argue that you're not a tight end when your own Twitter bio calls you a tight end. Now, the article notes that the Twitter bio probably wasn't the key factor in the decision, stating that the arbiter likely instead focused on how close to the offensive linemen Graham started most plays (which is stupid, by the way), but it did serve as a sort of catchy "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" moment against his claim.

Either way, before you go telling your bosses what role you play in a company, probably best that you get your story straight with your social media accounts first.

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]]>the-poorest-sainthttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140702/11394827763Tue, 24 Dec 2013 17:06:06 PSTFCC Finally Starts Process To Dump NFL BlackoutsTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131219/04201425617/fcc-finally-starts-process-to-dump-nfl-blackouts.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131219/04201425617/fcc-finally-starts-process-to-dump-nfl-blackouts.shtml
Forty years ago, there was a theory going around that if a professional sports team didn't sell enough tickets to their games, it would be a good idea to punish the viewers of their television product, also known as their other revenue stream, in some kind of ham-fisted attempt to get them to purchase tickets instead. While this was stupid even then, this was back when ticket sales and in-stadium sales represented a massive percentage of an athletic team's revenue. It was also back when the style of the television broadcast meant that poor attendance was hugely reflected on the home screen, which could have a negative impact on the perception of the team, the entertainment product, and the sport in general. Still, anyone with even an iota of thought that any of this was a good idea only had to look at the Chicago Blackhawks' popularity (or lack of it) during their blackout period to know how misguided this all was.

Yet this practice has gone on in the NFL for the past four decades. And, while league officials love to point out how few blackouts have occurred since implementing the policy, they're conveniently forgetting to tell you about how teams are gaming the system by buying up remaining tickets or altering their stadiums to avoid the blackouts. Less known is that the FCC has been a partner in these NFL blackouts for all these many years, but now that looks to be changing. They recently voted to lift the blackout restrictions entirely, recognizing that they were at best a strategy for a different time.

"The sports blackout rules were originally adopted nearly 40 years ago when game ticket sales were the main source of revenue for sports leagues...," the FCC said. "Changes in the sports industry in the last four decades have called into question whether the sports blackout rules remain necessary to ensure the overall availability of sports programming to the general public."

So, what are these changes that the FCC is recognizing? Well, for starters, ticket sales and stadium sales aren't the mass revenue generator they once were. They're still important, of course, just not as important as the insane television and advertising deals now in place.

The networks pay a combined total of about $3 billion a year to broadcast NFL games based on a nine-year deal signed in 2011 worth almost $28 billion. Neither Fox Sports nor CBS Sports, the main carriers of the NFL, had any comment on the FCC's proposal.

No, I suspect the networks were too busy keeping their heads from nodding in vigorous fashion at the FCC ruling to comment on much of anything at the moment. Because, while there have indeed been few blackouts, even the threat of a blackout is a stick in the eye of the advertising cow that is the NFL. More stability in the availability of the product is of course a great thing for them, particularly given that NFL teams tend to be in larger markets and local blackouts effect massive amounts of people. So we're all happy happy here, yes?

No, of course not, because the NFL appears to be run by people who have spent too much time hitting one another with their heads.

The NFL said in a statement that it will "strongly oppose any change in the rule. We are on pace for a historic low number of blackouts since the policy was implemented 40 years ago. While affecting very few games the past decade, the blackout rule is very important in supporting NFL stadiums and the ability of NFL clubs to sell tickets and keeping our games attractive as television programming with large crowds."

Nothing the FCC votes on prevents the league and/or teams from implementing their own blackout rules, so the NFL is free to continue down that path out of a fear of the television product showing less people at the stadiums. But that, dear friends, is stupid. It's stupid for several reasons. First, wider television audiences build up the fanbase and bring in greater crowds to the stadium. That was the lesson the Blackhawks should have taught everyone. Second, the NFL has never been more popular than it is today. Given that, if there are less people at the stadium, guess where they're watching? Yup, on their televisions, which we already know are now the major cash cow of the teams and the league. So you're going to cut that highly-paid nose off just to spite your stadium face?

Still, more television access, more streaming, and less restrictions are a trend that cannot be fought. It may take a change in leadership, but eventually the NFL blackout rules will go the way of the no-forward-pass rules, and they'll be all the better for it.

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]]>about-timehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20131219/04201425617Fri, 13 Sep 2013 15:20:16 PDTNFL Players Association Freaks Out About Tattoo CopyrightsTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130814/10005024174/nfl-players-association-freaks-out-about-tattoo-copyrights.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130814/10005024174/nfl-players-association-freaks-out-about-tattoo-copyrights.shtml
You'd think with all the threats facing the NFL and American football, such as Twitter-spoliers on draft picks and the impending SkyNET takeover, the powers that be in America's most-watched game wouldn't have time to deal with more minor threats from non-sentient-destructo-machines, but here's the stupidity of copyright on tattoos to prove me wrong yet again. You may recall that former athlete/tattoo issues have included Mike Tyson's face being visible in The Hangover 2, as well as UFC fighter Carlos Condit being depicted accurately in a THQ game.

The question is no longer whether the tattoos that cover Kaepernick's body will detract from his brand; the fear is that it could lead to future liability not only for the signal-caller, but for all other NFL players who are inked up. The ink issue is over who owns the copyright to the images depicted by the tattoos emblazoned on athletes' bodies. According to sources speaking to FORBES on condition of anonymity, the issue of copyright ownership concerning tattoos on football players has very recently been labeled as a pressing issue by the NFL Players Association. One source said, “I don't blame [the NFLPA], but they should have been on top of it earlier. It was something that was mentioned at the NFL Combine — that was the first I had ever heard them mention anything on the issue of tattoos. They advised agents to tell their players that when they get tattoos going forward they should get a release from the tattoo artist and if they can track down their former artists, they should get a release.”

And if they don't, or can't, get said release? Well, the NFLPA is then going to require that players agree to release the NFLPA from all litigation claims. Not only that, but likewise the NFLPA will seek to “indemnify and hold harmless” any of its licensees as well, such as EA Sports' Madden NFL franchise.

And that's really the shame of the story, because there's a potentially really interesting legal case to be fought here, and if anyone had the financial resources to push things along that far, it'd be the large group of millionaires that make up the NFL Players Association. Instead of pressing the issue, NFL players are instead left holding the liability bag, wondering whether or not they can make money off of their own freaking image, which is the kind of question that would convince me personally that I must be trapped in some 7th circle of the stupidest Hell imaginable. It's especially silly since, as Forbes notes, it's not remotely clear that gaming and media companies wouldn't be in the clear to use these depictions anyway.

Defenses based on fair use and that the tattoo has become a part of the recipient's persona for the purpose of the recipient being able to effectively license his likeness may be applicable. It is difficult to fathom that those responsible for drafting the Copyright Act intended to legally prohibit individuals adorned with tattoos from making public appearances or endorsing products without covering up their ink. But nobody wants to take the risk of appealing to the spirit of the law.

On top of that, you'd think that the players themselves, and the organization that represents them, would be interested in fighting back against any copyright claim, not just because of the monetary liability but because of Section 503, which notes that one of the remedies for infringement is that the court can order that the infringing product may be "destroyed." And while fans of, say, the Seattle Seahawks, might like the idea that Colin Kaepernick's arms may need to be "destroyed," that seems like something that the Players' Association might want to take a stand on.

Stated more honestly, this is yet another example of how copyright has gone so far and above its intent as to be unrecognizable by those that put it in place. And nobody wants to fight the fight, which means we'll likely either get a tidal wave of stupid lawsuits over tattoos or less-accurately depicted athletes in games and media. Way to go, copyright.

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]]>what-are-you-inking?https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130814/10005024174Fri, 23 Aug 2013 11:27:00 PDTThe NFL Will Feel The Streisand Effect After Pressuring ESPN To Pull Out Of Frontline DocumentaryTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130823/09571524295/nfl-will-feel-streisand-effect-after-pressuring-espn-to-pull-out-frontline-documentary.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130823/09571524295/nfl-will-feel-streisand-effect-after-pressuring-espn-to-pull-out-frontline-documentary.shtml
It never ceases to amaze me how businesses just can’t seem to understand the Streisand Effect, or its sister phenomenon, the cover up is always worse than the crime. Whether it’s small groups like a bunch of straight pride people that seek to silence what was essentially their own strange words, hugely famous celebrities, members of Congress, or even major television networks, the hits keep on coming.

But my ears perk up particularly when an otherwise massively successful company who should know better feels the Streisand slap down. Take the NFL for instance, which is currently suffering under reports that it pressured ESPN to pull out of a partnership in a PBS Frontline documentary on how the NFL has turned a blind eye to players suffering concussions, dementia, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy. According to all parties, it started out so well.

“[PBS’s] Aronson-Rath said that until last Friday, there had been no hint of trouble between “Frontline” and ESPN. She said that “Frontline” had worked “in lock step” with Vince Doria, ESPN’s senior vice president and director of news, and Dwayne Bray, senior coordinating producer in ESPN’s news-gathering unit.”

So, what happened on that Friday that caused ESPN to suddenly pull out of the partnership, which would have resulted in shared profits from the documentary? Well, during the previous week, the NFL hosted a meeting with ESPN’s President John Skipper that has been described as “combative.” The NFL, which is currently facing a class-action lawsuit from thousands of former players over the way it dealt with head-trauma and related injuries, is obviously not pleased about the documentary. Roger Goodell, league commissioner, was reportedly particularly upset that ESPN was working on the film in conjunction with its filmmakers. While Greg Aiello, NFL spokesman, insists that they did not ask ESPN to pull out of the project, it’s rather easy to connect the dots when ESPN did just that almost immediately after the meeting and without any discernible business reason.

And discernible business reason other than ESPN pays the NFL roughly $1 billion to broadcast the wildly successful Monday Night Football, an absolute cash cow for the Disney-owned station. In other words, the NFL told ESPN to bail on the project and they complied. Why? Because ESPN isn’t in the journalism business. Despite what they’d like you to think, they’re a marketing company, with any faux journalism done strictly to build up their televised sports products. That’s fine for them, but there’s a problem for the NFL.

That problem is that this story is now everywhere. Deadspin, the NY Times, all over the place. What was once a PBS documentary that might have been lightly covered by ESPN (though not too much, since it doesn’t hurt its own programming that way) has now been driven into the public discourse in typical Streisand-fashion. And, as always seems the case, everyone gets smeared except the actual documentary they want to silence. The NFL looks both meddlesome and as if it has something to hide, ESPN is all the more revealed to be a non-journalistic enterprise, rather than the journalistic one it pretends to be, and the Frontline documentary is getting a ton of attention.